On January 4th, 1967, The Doors fired the first shot in a monumental year in music. 50 years later we’ll hear tracks from the debut, covers, and a concert of Doors music by keyboardist Ray Manzarek with pianist George Winston.
A lot of electronic groups simply plug and play. The Album Leaf actually performs. Founder Jimmy LaValle comes from live bands like The Locust and Tristeza and he brings that same live, on-the-edge urgency to concerts by his ambient rock band, The Album Leaf.
The new year begins with Echoes January CD of the Month, from veteran musician Ian Boddy. A child of German space music, Boddy is among those who have advanced that sound into the 21st century
Merrin Karras is the performance name used by Irish musician Brendan Gregoriy, as his vehicle for ambient electronic sounds born in analog synthesizers. Brendan Gregoriy talks about the metal exorcism of Merrin Karras.
Ed Harris is another musician who was raised on metal but went into ambient electronic music instead. As Edamame uses field recordings made on his phone for some percussive sounds samples of birds chirping and outside chatter.
Get your notepads ready. It’s the Best of Echoes 2016. This past year was a truly great one for albums and John Diliberto has made the difficult choice of picking his favorites.